This proposal is an application for an Independent Scientist Award for the PI, Jennifer Crocker, Ph.D. to enable her to focus her efforts on research on contingencies of self esteem (SE), and extend that work to test hypotheses about the role of SE in depression, SE and aging, and SE and culture. SE is a central aspect of mental health, and thousands of studies of SE have been published. Yet, several basic disagreements and confusions regarding the nature and functioning of SE remain unresolved. The PI's current R01 grant addresses these basic issues, as well as the role of contingencies of SE in vulnerability to stigma. The K02 award would enable the PI to extend this research to test the following hypothesis: 1) Contingencies of SE, in conjunction with relevant life events, pose a risk for depression mediated through instability of SE, and possibly increases in the stress hormone cortical. 2) Contingencies of SE become more internal, and possibly lower overall, across the lifespan, and this shift in contingencies of SE can account both for continuity of levels of SE across the lifespan, despite many losses associated with aging, and for increases in stability of SE with age. 3) Cultural differences in the direction as well as possibly the content of contingencies of SE can account for the relatively low average levels of SE in Asians and Asian-Americans.